Friday, 11 April 2014

TERUGKLAP – SILICONVERSION

Imagine an Earth dangling on the precipice of the 30th Century. Just imagine that for a second. Ok? Done? Well this is the concept behind ultracool Canadian label Kind Deluxe's ongoing thang, The 2999 Project. "What do you envision for our future? Specifically, in the year 2999?" is the question they ask; it is answered by electronic musicians, who provide a track with an accompanying piece of text (most recently, and this time around, composed by Amit Dutta) as a description of their vision. Alongside this, illustrators create cover art for each track inspired by the music – the resulting combinations are different every time and the output is nothing short of TOP QUALITY. & It's a great way to find new artists to listen to :)

This time around, Netherlands producer Terugklap (real name Sander Haakman) has created a nightmarish vision in 'Siliconversion'. It represents a post-human earth, described thusly Amit Dutta: "Waves of carbonic acid lap up against the glittering green and silver beaches formed by the the dissolution of organic marine life and the discarded circuitry detritus of a millennium of electronics evolution. Beaches rise up through to agate rock steppes formed by layers upon layers of concentric banded geometry… Further inland the landscape gives way to geysers of molten silicon bubbling at 1400 degrees and thrown into the air where it immediately solidifies into rock… dirty yellow volcanic snow-ash drifts down in thick sheets and is blown and hardened into tortured sculptures by the lowered jet stream as a planet slowly converts from Carbon based to Silicon based life."

Hence the title 'Siliconversion'.

This is one darkly heavy-duty track if ever there was one. Nominally "experimental", beginning with alien snorts and sniffs accompanied by noxious breezes like those on an unrecognisable Earth, the track burns with an angry molten fluid intensity, bristling and crackling all the way, as if replicating the now acidic waves of the ocean. And from the tortured planet's heartbeat we have this brutally booming rich infra-bass thud – a disorienting plosive sound that, along with the high-pitched tinnitusesque squeak that fades in and out, gives a feeling of deafness, sense deprivation, fear and complete unknowingness. It is the semblance of a beat, which is a massive understatement, later joined by a snare that seems lost in the midst of these vicious sounds.

It's yet another showcase in King Deluxe's illustrious line of offerings, all of which YOU CAN SEE HERE and the earliest of which you can download from their respective places.